It can hard to spend all that time on meaningful things, but I think if you gradually quit things you don't want to spend time on, you gradually spend time on more important things. If you systematically eliminate things that are a waste of time, pretty soon you're doing things with at least some value.

Tracking time helps a lot with this. Just jotting down on paper once an hour what you did the last hour or so. Often, when it seems like forever has passed when I'm trying to work out something frustrating, it's only been 5 or 7 minutes. On the other side, a lot of high-stimulation websites, it'll seem like 5 minutes have passed, but it's been three hours.

Try tracking your time sometimes. It's huge. I realized I was spending way too much time following sports, so I quit spectator sports. Haven't been back. Don't miss it.

Instead I read a little more, walk around a little more, connect with people a little more, work a little more, cook a little more - I just spent a little more time on all the things that matter. I figure if you gradually quit bad things, eventually you're spending your time reasonably well. And if you gradually introduce good things and focus on those, then you start doing more and more amazing things.

24 hours is a lot of time. A lot can be done in 24 hours, if you're mindful of where the time is going.

A good way ensure you're spending your time well is to have clear goals. Then, ask yourself 10 times every day "Does what I'm doing right now support one of my goals?" If the answer is "No" then change what you're doing immediately.

Most everything we do has some value to us, else we wouldn't do it. The trick is to eliminate those activities that are not helping you to achieve your goals. When you choose to spend time only on activities that support your goal, you find you can achieve much more, much faster.

Easier said than done. But then again, no worthwhile achievement is easy.

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This follows on from "On Getting More Done – Top-down, or bottom up?" - the basic idea behind that post is you can get a lot more done by either taking on a lot more responsibilities, which forces you to adjust and use your time better - this is the "top down" strategy. Alternatively, you can slowly build and reclaim time from your life, moving your time from less meaningful areas into more meaningful areas.

But let's get more specific. I read a lot of books. Most smart people want to read a lot of books, but don't find the time to do it. So, how to read more?

This is where the bottom-up approach shines. You slowly move time from less meaningful areas to more meaningful areas.

"Sebastian, I just want to read more. I don't care about this tracking stuff."

Almost everyone I know is busy as hell. Running companies, contracting, doing creative work, and keeping a huge mix of projects going on.

Keeping busy is good, but sometimes it turns into a tragedy where you've got your head down doing work and duties, but you never get some of that real juice out of your life that you're wanting.

And many of the busy people I know -- myself included -- periodically have a day where they snap back to reality and really feel it for the first time in a while. "Oh god, I'm out of shape, my energy is low, I feel like crap, I'm not doing some of the key projects I love, I'm passing up a lot of really big opportunities stuck in the grind, I'm neglecting my hobbies and what I want to train... and for what?"

This applies just as much to entrepreneurs as people on salary, maybe even moreso. It's very easy as an entrepreneur or executive to get caught up in running around, getting stuck in the "errands" of business, dealing with what's on fire, and really neglecting the really expansionary projects that aren't urgent, your health, and maybe worst of all -- forgetting to have fun.